


Those Left Behind

by Rakath



Category: Degrassi
Genre: Gen, MCU AU, Somehow, angsty fic, i swear this makes sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22086316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rakath/pseuds/Rakath
Summary: A very dubious idea I wrote after watching a Kevin Smith video on youtube. I swear it'll make sense with my explanation.I hope.
Relationships: Maya Matlin/Jake Martin, Zoe Rivas/Yael Baron
Kudos: 5





	1. Three Years

I’ve gotten used to being woken up in the middle of the night. Slipping on a dressing gown and crossing the hall to the other bedroom was mostly done by memory, having done it so often. And taking Maya into her arms and holding her till she calmed down. Maya woke up in the middle of most nights, and some nights she even avoided screaming.

But enough nights, I couldn’t blame her. The past three years had been a lot. I felt like screaming too, although I don’t think I had quite as much to scream about. Even if some days I thought I might. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re not alone.”

***

Not enough hours later I was in the kitchen, making breakfast. I’d let Maya make breakfast exactly once and never again. I had more time to learn to cook anythiing, Maya’s family taught her how to take a yogurt from the fridge in the morning and that was about it. Not that my mother was any better, but Grace and her mom were.

“Morning Zoe,” Maya came down the stairs in her usual clumsy crashing step. Skipping the last few steps and I was never sure if she meant to do that, or she was just that clumsy on her feet. Either way she stuck the landing.

I hated how well she bounced back from rough nights. I mean she still looked haunted and like death, but she wore it well. Practice, I guess? “Breakfast is about ready.”

“Sorry I’m not more use…”

“We do this every morning, it’s fine. You buy the groceries, I make things people can actually eat.”

I didn’t have to look to know Maya was making a face at me. We had a routine now, like actual sisters. More or less. I had finished plating the eggs and pancakes when the doorbell rang. I was already up. Maya was sitting down. We stared each other down before I wandered over to get the door.

He was tall, had that good looking cowboy thing. If he was clean shaven he’d be a perfect fit for the pre-spagetti western Roy Rogers deal. Not anything I wanted, but I could see the appeal. But I had no idea who he was, why he was here, and why he was here so early, “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, uh, do you know what happened to the girl who lived here before-” he paused, looking for the words to describe  _ it _ . We all knew what it was, nobody could forget what happened. But nobody managed to say it out loud.

I heard Maya coming almost as soon as the man had started talking. And Maya crashed into him with a hug I’ve  _ never _ seen her manage since three years ago. Well, guess he was family. Whoever he was.

***

“Jake what happened to you, we all thought you…” Maya trailed off, the same trailing off everyone did. “You know.”

“I was building houses in South America.” Jake was at the stove making himself some food, he’d taken out a chicken breast, eggs, bacon, waffles,  _ and _ pancakes for himself. “College wasn’t for me. People started turning to dust, the world fell apart, and the US border shut down for anyone not a US citizen. With most airports out of commission, I had a hell of a time getting back.”

“And you get home to find out you’re another blip orphan?” I worked on my food. Maybe I could have been kinder but we all lost someone that day.

“Clare’s in New York, but yeah, her mom and my dad vanished that day. You two?”

“I wish,” I said, not wanting to go into how sick it was. To envy those that’s parents vanished. And feel sorry for them, their parents didn’t deserve it. Not like mine.

Maya just faded into her seat, eating without answering. Fuck. I knocked my chair over in my haste to pull Maya into a hug.

“What’d I say?”

I sighed, “Maya… has shit luck. Her parents, sister, all her friends. Her ex…”

“It wasn’t luck…” Maya barely mumbled it into my shoulder as she slowly returned the hug.

I’d given up correcting her, there wasn’t much use. She just- refused to accept anything less than it was her fault. She’ll bounce back soon as we find a new topic. “So why are you here?”

“Well…” Jake set down with his food, and added some bacon to each of our plates. I took the break to go back, right my chair, and sit down. He wasn’t the worst houseguest anymore. “I thought I’d check on Maya, if I could. Then figure out where to stay and look for work.”

“We turned Katie’s room into storage, but if you need a place to stay I know you know your way around it… intimately.” Maya said, smirking at who could have been her brother-in-law. If the world didn’t go to hell.

“Thanks.”

“Good news is lots of jobs are hiring, now that each has fifty percent more vacancies. Most aren’t even looking for education information.”

Jake looked at the pair, “So you two?”

“Oh God no,” Maya said, quickly. “She didn’t feel comfortable where she was living without her sister. And I had the space.”

“You didn’t have to shoot it down so fast.” I was more amused than angry, but dating Maya didn’t seem like a good plan until she could sleep through the night. Whenever that happened.

“Your theyfriend might think differently.”

“Anyway, you need to get ready for work.”

“Right, right,” Maya got up and kissed Jake on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re not disintigrated. Didn’t get a chance to say that.”

“Thanks.” He seemed in good spirits.

Maya ran off and out the door with a piece of bacon in her mouth. Dork.

“So… why is she back here, I thought she was going to school in California.”

“Well,” I made sure Maya was actually gone. That girl could forget anything. “Even without everything else, her college shut down due to lack of teachers.”

“Everything else?”

“She- didn’t take that day very well.” Understatement of the decade. I might as well also say my mother is a bad parent, and that day was kinda bad.

“I figured after Cam, and the bus, things would go better for her.”

“Yeah, well, then some space bastard used magic to unmake half of the world’s population. Maya just happened to lose her entire safety net. Because someone out there hates her I guess.”

“Except you?” Jake was studying me. For a mountainous cowboy man who got lost for three years, he didn’t seem dumb by any measure.

“Her best friend took me in, Maya and I weren’t really friends at Degrassi. All I did was hurt her.”

He was still watching me, in between eating. Where did most of his food go? Has he just not seen food in three years? “So this is pennance?”

“Maybe? I just know that she’s alone without me.”

“Not anymore.” Jake smiled. He had a good smile, if I was straight that smile would be dangerous. Especially since it wasn’t meant to get into my panties. It was just kind.

“Right, if she wakes up screaming you can go comfort her.” Better to warn him now, instead of letting him find out at three AM.

The front door opened letting in the most handsome, beautiful person in my life. Their hair was cut boyishly short, save a few locks in the front over their right eye. Slacks, button up shirt, vest. Very slimming, good shape. The binder deminished their chest, but the vest made the hips and waist more apparent. I loved taking those clothes off of them most days.

Guess not today, stupid long lost boys.

“I didn’t know you were experimenting with good looking male brunets.” Yael’s smirk said they didn’t believe this was anything.

“Yael. Jake. Jake. Yael,” I handled the introductions quickly. “They’re dating me, he’s Katie’s long lost boyfriend who didn’t cease to exist. It’s a long story.”

“The beard told me that much.”

Jake looked between the two of us, obviously trying to piece together what he was missing. “I’m interupting sexy time, aren’t I.”

“Not if she has bacon breath,” Yael said, glaring at my plate.

“My day off. Their day off. You didn’t even know either of us before now so this shouldn’t bother you.” I was ignoring the judgment. Bacon is tasty. “Besides, as a blip orphan, we with parents still can’t be too angry with you.”

“So you have parents?”

“She doesn’t,” Yael answered, before I could. “She was disowned before the blip. She just lost…”

Yael stopped. Not sure if I wanted that shared, “I was dating someone. It hurt, I got back up. Part of why I came to stay here. Maya needed me, I guess I needed her.”

“I need to go prove to the government I still exist. Get a new cell phone, find a job. All that.” Jake took his empty plate to the sink.

Yael looked over to me, “I’ll give you a ride, if you’re staying here I should get to know you.”

Yael gave me a kiss. On the cheek because of the bacon, couldn’t blame them. I let the two leave and went to the sink to work on dishes. Carrying Maya’s plate, like most mornings.

I closed my eyes.

I tried to picture Rasha. Think about her, with me at prom, when we first met. Our first kiss. Anything but what I got.

Seeing her turn to dust before my eyes.

Fuck, why did I turn around so fast. If I was a second slower. Just one second slower, I wouldn’t have that as my last memory of her. I didn’t fight crying, crying was easy. So easy I could do it silently. Not just Rasha, even if that wound was still the deepest, the least healed. Grace, Miles, Winston… I lost my share too. I was just a little more together than Maya.

I gave myself a moment or two to feel sad, my therapist says it helps. Feel sorry for myself, be a pathetic little wimp. Then I washed my face, put on my make-up, and got on with my life. I didn’t get my morning with Yael, but plenty could get done today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this overall idea is thanks to Kevin Smith existing in both Degrassi and in the MCU (due to Stan Lee reading the script for Mallrats as a visual gag in Captain Marvel). Which meant I had an excuse to write characters I know and love dealing with the aftermath of Thanos's snappening.
> 
> And naturally the place my mind went to first was make Maya Matlin suffer, that's really what canon loves to do.
> 
> I picked a close first person as I love writing that way, and Zoe's POV because I felt the outside perspective of Maya's suffering worked a little better. The rest of the cast is both a case of 'who I wanted to use' and 'making more pairing tags nobody else will use in the AO3 system.' Although I'll revisit Zoe/Yael as a ship at some point as it seems like a fun place to explore.
> 
> Setting it after the initial event felt like a more interesting place to play, everyone has had time to get used to something horrible. But that doesn't mean the pain has gotten any less, and that's sorta what I wish the MCU could have explored more of (in some side-thing, as Endgame was already too long). People dealing with a true horrible time. So...
> 
> Happy new years, I guess.


	2. Five Years

I held Zoe’s hand as we waited in the airport. Thankfully she put up with my shit and didn’t complain about how this might look. She knew what I was doing was hard, and today I needed her. “It’ll be fine, Maya.”

“It still feels like seeing ghosts, and- the other thing.”

“She can’t be mad at you over that, maybe mad at him.” Zoe was looking at me, “but not you.”

I smiled, even if I wasn’t entirely convinced. All of this was just so weird. After it happened, and the world fell away and most everyone I knew was gone I thought, ‘This is as weird as it gets.’

And the universe decided to prank me by doing it again.

“Hey Chicken Little,” I don’t really know how to describe it, seeing exactly what you expect but it not making any sense. Katie had found us while we were talking. My sister. She looked exactly like she did last time I saw her. And that was just wrong.

Zoe let go of my hand as Katie made her way over.

“You can’t really call me that anymore, I’m older than you.” Still, I hugged her, to confirm she was real. This was happening, everyone was back. As if they just stepped out of a day five years ago.

“That’ll take some getting used to,” Katie looked at me, studying me, taking apart all the changes that she missed. The tattoos, the shorter hair. A few new scars. Clumsy scars, not anything more serious. I hope she didn’t think it was something else. Her attention finally turned to Zoe, “Why is Zoe with you?”

“Oh, um, moral support. A lot’s changed.”

“I’ve been living in your house since-” Zoe didn’t name the event, she let the thought linger a little too long, “Maya and I aren’t together. I just needed a place to stay, and Maya…”

I was alone. My family vanished and I was alone.

“So you’re staying in my room? Well, your room now after all this time.” Katie was so close to right, but not quite. And I knew telling her the truth would complicate matters. But it isn’t like we could lie to her forever.

“Well, Zoe took mom and dad’s room. I just couldn’t bring myself to- it was just weird-”

Katie put her arm over my shoulder, “So my room is clear?”

“No, see, Jake’s been staying there… with me.”

“Jake? My boyfriend?” Katie moved away from me, the moment I said his name.

I didn’t have anything to say to that. How do I explain what happened? When cuddling on the couch to be near anyone shifted into doing it with just him. We realized it was morbid, the only thing we had in common was someone who died. At least, to us, at the time.

Zoe rolled her eyes, “You were gone, Jake didn’t have any family in town, he started staying with us. Eventually that turned into the two of them being a thing.”

“But with my boyfriend?” Katie was still on that.

“You were gone,” Zoe stepped between us. “You were gone and Maya was alone. Jake was the first person that made me think Maya wouldn’t become a crazy cat lady. And I hate cats, but I’d let her get all the cats she wanted if it helped her get over her entire family vanishing in the blink of an eye.”

Katie did not expect Zoe to be so protective of me, which is hardly a surprise given when Katie was around Zoe and I were still mostly enemies. Katie took a step back and seemed to give up trying to fight over this. “I guess Jake isn’t the same guy I remember, he’s changed as much as you two have.”

Zoe smiled, triumphant, and moved in to put her arm around me. I knew why she was preening like that, she was my sister now. More than Katie was, at the moment. Maybe more than Katie ever was? 

Lot’s to talk about with my shrink this week.

“How is Grace, now that she’s back?” Katie asked.

“She’s calling it a stupid miracle. She gets to see five more years of what we get up to,” I answered.

“Grace being positive is the fucking weirdest.” Zoe said, moving away now that she’s basked in victory long enough.

“How was talking to Rasha?”

“We… didn’t talk on skype, just a phone call. My ex being a teenager still just feels weird.” Zoe scoffed, “We’ll keep in touch, but I figure it’ll always be weird.”

“Miles and Lola are getting back together.”

“Wait, those two dated?” Katie asked, “Your ex and that weird bubblegum headed cheerleader?”

“Not exactly.” Zoe and I said it at the same time.

Zoe and I shared a smile before I kept the conversation going, “Miles hasn’t lost a step with all the ways things changed. He was catching up with Lola and managed to make ‘I’ve always had a weakness for older women’ work for him.”

“I hate how good he is at that, it’s infuriating.” Zoe turned her attention to Katie, “You’ll have your room back in a few weeks. Now that the world is right again I’m moving in with my fiance. And-”

I went a little pale, shooting a look at Zoe begging for her not to finish that thought. I’d have to tell Katie eventually but I didn’t want to do it now. Especially now that she dropped the whole fight over Jake thing.

“Grace being back means living with Maya’s not really for me anymore, no offense.”

I let out a sigh, “None taken, jerk.”

“Drama queen.” We were both smiling, this is just who we were to each other.

Katie glanced between the pair of us, “That’ll take getting used to.”

“Katie, you don’t mind riding back with Zoe? I have somewhere to be.”

“Sure,” Katie sounded very far from sure.

Zoe leveled a look at me, “Right, you do that thing you gotta do.”

***

The room had zero furniture, a few of the walls didn’t have the plaster up. The flooring was a mess. I was trying to picture it, with all of that fixed. If we’d decorate with art or music posters. Different ideas for color schemes. Some mix of dark tones and pastels. Little bit pop little bit rock. If I could feel at home here.

“Zoe texted me saying you ran off, was it weird with Katie?”

I hopped up from what could, I suppose, be called a floor and threw myself into his arms. “It was.”

“Seeing Dad and Helen again was pretty jarring too.”

“Maybe if you shaved it would have gone better?” I brushed a hand over the beard he refused to get rid of. I didn’t mind it, most of the time.

“Helen judged, but she was more concerned with…” Jake trailed off.

“Us.”

“We’re not wrong for how we feel.”

“I know, they just don’t get how we got here. They don’t really know us the way they think they do.”

He pulled me into his arms, letting my face press against his chest. I want to say there was some grand romantic moment that started us off together, but it was pretty much a small thing like this. I had been feeling down, not freaking out, just sad. He held me close, and I decided ‘we should have sex.’ It was that simple, that easy, it just happened.

“So what happened with Katie that lead you to come here?”

“Just-” I sighed, pushed out of his arms just to gather my thoughts. How to express it, “I wasn’t sure if I was running away from them, or running toward us? I was sure it was running toward us, but Katie got all weird and I knew she would, so now I’m wondering if I was just trying to avoid all of that.”

“And what’d you come up with?”

“That it doesn’t matter. The world took another piece of me away, made me someone new. And no matter what I try I won’t go back to who I was. Even having them all back, it's all wrong.” I was so sick of the world doing this to me, breaking a part of me. A part I don’t get back. And each time it happened I could see where I was before, but it was just out of reach. My old family was breaking up my new family.

Jake pulled me into his arms again, he was good at knowing when I needed a hug. “You’ll get used to them being back, they’ll get used to this new you. And you’ll have even more people that love you.”

“Katie and Zoe were fighting over me, a little.”

“They’ll learn to share. Who won?”

I looked at him, “Zoe.”

“She loves you, she wouldn’t have stuck around the whole five years of this if she didn’t. But Katie loves you too, I might be dead though, I slept with her younger sister.”

“I was older than Katie the first time we did anything.”

“I might be dead though, I slept with her older sister.”

“I’m sure Zoe will protect you.”

“You have so much faith in her,” Jake kissed my forehead.

“So… how long before we can move in?”

“Here? About two months before everything is done.”

“And if we move in before everything is done?”

“If you don’t need a kitchen, then I think two weeks? Why?”

“I’d like to start my new life with you as quickly as possible.” Before the world changed me again.

I should feel lucky, I got back everyone I lost this time. Exactly the same as how they left me, which is better than the last time I was broken. But I still broke, I still changed, and that would just take some time. I shouldn’t be afraid this would happen again, or this was all a dream and I’d wake up alone again. But I was. That was me now, deep down.

But if I run fast enough toward something, I might be able to enjoy it. Before it all shatters again. That’d be worth the work to get there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter, and the pairing in it, has two ideas behind it:
> 
> \- Every reason Jake and Katie worked narratively in canon works as well with Maya.  
> \- I do love a good angsty 'brought together through lost' romance even if they are objectively weird and terrible.
> 
> But on the whole I wanted there to be something for a character who came back into existence after the unsnappening to react to, and this seemed as good an idea as any other. I shifted to Maya's POV because I felt it was a better call in this situation, and I had that scene in the end I wanted which needed a Maya POV anyway.


End file.
